Frontier

Frontier blends cinematic portraits of cowboys and expansive landscapes with experimental works to create a visual representation of the mythical American West. The book is the first monograph by photographer Jim Krantz who has spent his life and work immersed in the landscape and culture embedded in American national identity.

When I worked at the store with my dad, I’d often sneak off to the stockyards. Watching the cow boys herd cattle and horses, their ropes spinning effortlessly, left an indelible impression on me. It was a vivid, living image of strength and independence, one that has stayed with me all mylife.... Krantz’s photographs often feel familiar. His commercial work for major US brands have made his imagery synomous with that associated with the dream of the American West. Widely reproduced anonymously for decades on billboards, in magazines and other media, his photographs are further familarised through their appropriation by arist Richard Prince. The publication of Frontier comes at a time when aspects of everyday life— air conditioning, desk jobs, lack of access to nature and the reliance on the motor car—increase man’s divorce from this way of life. With millions of acres of land in the US lost to development, farms, cities, powerplants and other infrastruction, the ability and freedom to roam the land are fast disappearing and Krantz’s book a resonant swansong to the fast disappearing myth.